New York Fire Alarm
It was 3 am on a friday night, and I was sitting cross legged on the floor with my speaker-less computer, blasting dubstep to all who were willing to listen. I had been speaking at length to Lance's roommate, Karl, about music; music he made, music his friends made, music my friends made and what exactly went into making music. Two other boys were around, San and Bryan, who were both playing video games at stations they had claimed in their friends' rooms since they had first set foot, seeking friendship. San was playing an old fashioned video game from the 90's, smiling privately at the joke the computer screen and him shared, as if they were old friends, which contrasted with the way Sherman and all the rest looked at their screens which were heavy with shooting CGI and real life lights blinking off their faces, the excitement palpable and their pulses racing.
Karl had run out of music to show me, and was probably getting bored, and so he too had started on his own recently acquired, 'latest release' of virtual reality. By this time, Bryan's girlfriend, Anna, had shown up, wearing no makeup and sitting comfy in Bryan's lap, satisfied with pawing at him while he focused his guiltless attention on the game, instead of her. I decided to find something interesting to do on my computer that did not involve anything that would not enrich me in any way. Anyway, a crazy siren started going off, and I imagined a siren with a potential magnitude akin to the ones atop ambulances were installed in every single room in the dorm; when one went off, it triggered every other one, which in turn triggered every single one along the way until the whole building was on fire with noise, if it wasn't on fire already.
Everybody ignored it at first, so used to false alarms from years of fire drills in schools that cried wolf. But then it started getting louder and louder with every unceasing sound. As I wasn't attached to any screen or hip, I got up to inspect. I opened the door and saw white faces, pale puffy faces with furrowed brows and rolling eyes, all poke out towards the hallway. Soon half of them were starting off towards the staircase, holding their handphones. I went back into the room and announced that the dorm was probably, really, on fire; and that everybody was clearing out. Everybody rolled their eyes, but all I could think of was how crazy loud the alarms were here. Probably because everything was so close together in New York, and one little fire somewhere could, given time, burn the entire city to the ground. As everyone started to shuffle out, I had to resist grabbing my luggage, and wondered if the fire was a reality bigger than stray smoke wafting towards oversensitive detectors.
Thank God I had remembered my coat, because half the dorm dwellers had come down in their pajamas, thinking it'd be over as soon as it started. After we had all seen the three fire engines that had made their way down, we knew it wasn't going to be an easy affair. "Come on, let's get out of here," Bryan announced, confidence in the form of Anna at his side. It wasn't my place to ask where. "Where?" Lance asked.
"I don't know, but these things take forever. They're probably gonna take stock of everybody one by one. Let's just get supper."
I knew that supper at 4am made you fat, but I wasn't going to stand in the crowded cold with crazy fire engine lights shining in my face for an hour. Bryan took the lead and we walked in the subzero night, sharp air cutting into my pores and making me feel alive as I took in the red brick and grey concrete, that all looked so different in the night. I didn't know where I was going but I knew that this feeling was new, and that was all that was important to me at the time. We arrived at a 24 hour diner with heavily advertised 'homemade' soups and burgers, somehow conveying the message that 'homemade' equaled unparalleled taste. The boys ordered equal servings of milkshakes and fries, and Anna was content sharing Bryan's. I resisted the allure of hot soup to quell my winter burned fingers, choosing instead to warm them between my only slightly warmer thighs. As we waited, we talked about what had happened earlier on, and wondered where Karl had disappeared to.
The waiter had come over several times with high plates of hot food in his hands, only to serve them to customers behind or next to us. I thought that was what hunger heartbreak felt like. Soon, the waiter finally arrived to our table with our milkshakes and fries, and we all tucked in, tired from staring at our unblinking screens and from the commotion that had erupted in the 'dead' of night. Conversation was sporadic but comfortable, and I grabbed fries from Lance who was always willing to share. I thought and talked stupidly in my half drunken, sleep deprived state, suddenly overwhelmingly tired from all the easy talk I had been doing for the past few hours. We finished up, paid the bill, left an adequate (but student-friendly) tip, and opened the door into the night marked with fire (at least in my head it had been.)
We ambled along easily, and I kept thinking we was in the hood, owning out the empty streets of NYC at ungodly hours. I shook thoughts of bad guys in hoodies in corners out of my head, and started doing a little skip as I walked. I felt stupid, and happy, and cold, and wild, suddenly so aware that I was in New York; crazy, crisp, all-business all-pleasure New York, in the dead of night with new and likeable people. I knew what I had to do.
'So I BALL SO HARD, MOTHER******* wanna FINE me.'
I bust out with swinging arms.
'But first them ni**as gotta FIND ME.'
Everyone else smiled as the walked along, perhaps not knowing the song, perhaps paying little mind to the small, sleep deprived girl that was suddenly convinced she knew what being a boss felt like.
'What's 50 grand to a mother****** like me, can you please remind me'
San continued halfheartedly, as with most people starting a song in front of someone they didn't know that well.
'ball so hard this shit CRAzy, ya'll donknow that don't shit FAZE me.'
We were shouting together now.
'The Nets could go, 0-82, and I look at you like, this shit GRAVY!'
'BALL SO HARD THIS SHIT WEIRD!
WE AIN'T EVEN S'POSE BE HERE!'
'BALL SO HARD, SINCE WE HERE!
IT'S ONLY RIGHT THAT WE BE FAIR!
'PSYCHO! I'M LIABLE! TO GO MICHAEL!
TAKE YOUR PICK: JACKSON! TYSON! JORDAN! GAME 6!'
And then on and on, alternating unwavering til my favourite part (this one I sang solo):
'WHAZ GUCCI MY *****?!
WHAZ LOUIS MY KILLA?!
WHAZ DRUGSS MY DEALA,
WHAZ THAT JACKET MARGIELA?!
DOCTOR SAY IM THE ILLEST
COS I'M SUFFERING FROM REALNESS
GOT MA NIGGAS IN PARIS
AND THEY GOIN GORILLAZ,
HUH?!'
By now I was having too much fun to care what anybody thought of me. If Anna thought I was attention eating, or if soft-spoken Bryan, who would probably never listen to this song on his own accord, thought I was a rare breed of part girl part hooligan, I wouldn't have known it. Well perhaps I still would have cared (for I was new and still seeking acceptance), but they were smiling, and frankly, we all knew what this sort of city night did to you when you were running on empty. Hell, they were probably ready to bust out themselves.
We continued this way until we reached the dorm and the song had ended. Everybody had gone from the pathways, presumably back into the dorm. The firetrucks had also left. I thought of a cereal box, spilling out its contents, only to have its contents grow legs and run back in. Drained, we walked back into the (still intact) building, and breathed back to our respective rooms. 'Goodnight guys', we all muttered with tired smiles that barely reached our eyes. We found Karl back in the room, and asked where he'd been. He had been helping a girl in crutches down the staircase, made perilous by the amount of people rushing to get ground, and had lost us in the process. I felt a vague sense of guilt as I had seen her near the steps earlier on, but had not reached out ('I wasn't from around here anyway'), but felt glad that she had had help. It turned out that some people had burnt their food in a microwave oven, setting off the smoke alarm, which had set off each other alarm in turn. Some jokers smoking pot had come out of the building paranoid as shit, convinced it had been their surreptitious activities that had caused the alarms to go off. As I hit the sack, my head too tired to do its usual rounds around itself before it rested, I smiled and told myself to write the night down.
Karl had run out of music to show me, and was probably getting bored, and so he too had started on his own recently acquired, 'latest release' of virtual reality. By this time, Bryan's girlfriend, Anna, had shown up, wearing no makeup and sitting comfy in Bryan's lap, satisfied with pawing at him while he focused his guiltless attention on the game, instead of her. I decided to find something interesting to do on my computer that did not involve anything that would not enrich me in any way. Anyway, a crazy siren started going off, and I imagined a siren with a potential magnitude akin to the ones atop ambulances were installed in every single room in the dorm; when one went off, it triggered every other one, which in turn triggered every single one along the way until the whole building was on fire with noise, if it wasn't on fire already.
Everybody ignored it at first, so used to false alarms from years of fire drills in schools that cried wolf. But then it started getting louder and louder with every unceasing sound. As I wasn't attached to any screen or hip, I got up to inspect. I opened the door and saw white faces, pale puffy faces with furrowed brows and rolling eyes, all poke out towards the hallway. Soon half of them were starting off towards the staircase, holding their handphones. I went back into the room and announced that the dorm was probably, really, on fire; and that everybody was clearing out. Everybody rolled their eyes, but all I could think of was how crazy loud the alarms were here. Probably because everything was so close together in New York, and one little fire somewhere could, given time, burn the entire city to the ground. As everyone started to shuffle out, I had to resist grabbing my luggage, and wondered if the fire was a reality bigger than stray smoke wafting towards oversensitive detectors.
Thank God I had remembered my coat, because half the dorm dwellers had come down in their pajamas, thinking it'd be over as soon as it started. After we had all seen the three fire engines that had made their way down, we knew it wasn't going to be an easy affair. "Come on, let's get out of here," Bryan announced, confidence in the form of Anna at his side. It wasn't my place to ask where. "Where?" Lance asked.
"I don't know, but these things take forever. They're probably gonna take stock of everybody one by one. Let's just get supper."
I knew that supper at 4am made you fat, but I wasn't going to stand in the crowded cold with crazy fire engine lights shining in my face for an hour. Bryan took the lead and we walked in the subzero night, sharp air cutting into my pores and making me feel alive as I took in the red brick and grey concrete, that all looked so different in the night. I didn't know where I was going but I knew that this feeling was new, and that was all that was important to me at the time. We arrived at a 24 hour diner with heavily advertised 'homemade' soups and burgers, somehow conveying the message that 'homemade' equaled unparalleled taste. The boys ordered equal servings of milkshakes and fries, and Anna was content sharing Bryan's. I resisted the allure of hot soup to quell my winter burned fingers, choosing instead to warm them between my only slightly warmer thighs. As we waited, we talked about what had happened earlier on, and wondered where Karl had disappeared to.
The waiter had come over several times with high plates of hot food in his hands, only to serve them to customers behind or next to us. I thought that was what hunger heartbreak felt like. Soon, the waiter finally arrived to our table with our milkshakes and fries, and we all tucked in, tired from staring at our unblinking screens and from the commotion that had erupted in the 'dead' of night. Conversation was sporadic but comfortable, and I grabbed fries from Lance who was always willing to share. I thought and talked stupidly in my half drunken, sleep deprived state, suddenly overwhelmingly tired from all the easy talk I had been doing for the past few hours. We finished up, paid the bill, left an adequate (but student-friendly) tip, and opened the door into the night marked with fire (at least in my head it had been.)
We ambled along easily, and I kept thinking we was in the hood, owning out the empty streets of NYC at ungodly hours. I shook thoughts of bad guys in hoodies in corners out of my head, and started doing a little skip as I walked. I felt stupid, and happy, and cold, and wild, suddenly so aware that I was in New York; crazy, crisp, all-business all-pleasure New York, in the dead of night with new and likeable people. I knew what I had to do.
'So I BALL SO HARD, MOTHER******* wanna FINE me.'
I bust out with swinging arms.
'But first them ni**as gotta FIND ME.'
Everyone else smiled as the walked along, perhaps not knowing the song, perhaps paying little mind to the small, sleep deprived girl that was suddenly convinced she knew what being a boss felt like.
'What's 50 grand to a mother****** like me, can you please remind me'
San continued halfheartedly, as with most people starting a song in front of someone they didn't know that well.
'ball so hard this shit CRAzy, ya'll donknow that don't shit FAZE me.'
We were shouting together now.
'The Nets could go, 0-82, and I look at you like, this shit GRAVY!'
'BALL SO HARD THIS SHIT WEIRD!
WE AIN'T EVEN S'POSE BE HERE!'
'BALL SO HARD, SINCE WE HERE!
IT'S ONLY RIGHT THAT WE BE FAIR!
'PSYCHO! I'M LIABLE! TO GO MICHAEL!
TAKE YOUR PICK: JACKSON! TYSON! JORDAN! GAME 6!'
And then on and on, alternating unwavering til my favourite part (this one I sang solo):
'WHAZ GUCCI MY *****?!
WHAZ LOUIS MY KILLA?!
WHAZ DRUGSS MY DEALA,
WHAZ THAT JACKET MARGIELA?!
DOCTOR SAY IM THE ILLEST
COS I'M SUFFERING FROM REALNESS
GOT MA NIGGAS IN PARIS
AND THEY GOIN GORILLAZ,
HUH?!'
By now I was having too much fun to care what anybody thought of me. If Anna thought I was attention eating, or if soft-spoken Bryan, who would probably never listen to this song on his own accord, thought I was a rare breed of part girl part hooligan, I wouldn't have known it. Well perhaps I still would have cared (for I was new and still seeking acceptance), but they were smiling, and frankly, we all knew what this sort of city night did to you when you were running on empty. Hell, they were probably ready to bust out themselves.
We continued this way until we reached the dorm and the song had ended. Everybody had gone from the pathways, presumably back into the dorm. The firetrucks had also left. I thought of a cereal box, spilling out its contents, only to have its contents grow legs and run back in. Drained, we walked back into the (still intact) building, and breathed back to our respective rooms. 'Goodnight guys', we all muttered with tired smiles that barely reached our eyes. We found Karl back in the room, and asked where he'd been. He had been helping a girl in crutches down the staircase, made perilous by the amount of people rushing to get ground, and had lost us in the process. I felt a vague sense of guilt as I had seen her near the steps earlier on, but had not reached out ('I wasn't from around here anyway'), but felt glad that she had had help. It turned out that some people had burnt their food in a microwave oven, setting off the smoke alarm, which had set off each other alarm in turn. Some jokers smoking pot had come out of the building paranoid as shit, convinced it had been their surreptitious activities that had caused the alarms to go off. As I hit the sack, my head too tired to do its usual rounds around itself before it rested, I smiled and told myself to write the night down.
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